Cricket’s biggest problem isn’t the format, it’s the marketers November 15, 2025 The fireworks have faded, the John Lewis ad has landed, and the smell of gunpowder is giving way to the scent of linseed oil. It can only mean one thing: cricket’s oldest rivalry is back. On 21 November England face Australia once again in the Ashes. As Jofra Archer (hopefully) starts his run-up or Zak [...]
Formula 1 and The Hundred offer lessons in governance for fragmented likes of rugby November 1, 2025 To succeed, sports need governance structures that empower one entity to steer it, as in Formula 1, The Hundred and SailGP, writes Nevin Truesdale. The increasing commercialisation of sport has seen historical governance structures come under scrutiny. As in any business, governance structures are central to the ability to evolve in response to a changing [...]
The Hundred: New owners relax salary rules to attract top talent October 31, 2025 The Hundred’s new overseas investors have rung the changes for next year’s competition, confirming that an auction will replace the player draft and that franchises will have new maximum and minimum salary budgets. In moves designed to attract more top global talent to the summer white-ball cricket tournament, individual player salaries will be uncapped and [...]
My dozen questions to get inside the minds of English cricket fans October 9, 2025 An invitation from the England and Wales Cricket Board arrives, forwarded by Middlesex Cricket. A survey no less, and one with a laudable aim – to find out what it would take to entice the respondent to take up or extend membership of their favoured cricket county. It starts with questions about age, gender and [...]
Football clubs concerned as EFL set to axe its rogue owners test October 8, 2025 The EFL is planning to hand over sole responsibility for assessing the suitability of potential owners to the Independent Football Regulator (IFR), raising concerns among some clubs over whether the new government-backed body has the resources and expertise to make such judgements effectively. The Premier League, in contrast, will continue to operate its own Owners’ [...]
Exclusive: Welsh Fire co-owner wants Hundred to be T20 within two years October 7, 2025 The Indian-American co-owner of The Hundred franchise Welsh Fire, Sanjay Govil, wants the competition to drop its unique format and become a T20 league within two years. The 100-ball format has come under pressure following the sale of stakes in all eight Hundred franchises to overseas investors, some of whom are keen to bring the [...]
Surrey close £60m Oval Invincibles deal with Reliance after eight months October 1, 2025 Surrey have finally exchanged contracts with Reliance Industries over the shareholders’ agreement governing their new partnership in the Oval-based Hundred team after almost eight months of negotiations. The Mumbai Indians owners agreed to pay £60m for 49 per cent of the franchise in February, but talks over the finer details of the deal have been [...]
Cricketers’ union: Counties don’t care about player welfare September 24, 2025 The Professional Cricketers’ Association has accused County Championship chairs of failing to prioritise player welfare after they rejected plans to streamline the competition. A long-running consultation on reducing the number of fixtures in the English game concluded yesterday without achieving the two-thirds majority support required. The proposals put to a vote were for the top [...]
European T20 Premier League: Is this cricket’s next growth market? September 16, 2025 When Italy’s men secured their historic qualification for next year’s T20 World Cup earlier this summer, the cheers reached all the way to India. Over in the subcontinent, a group backed by Bollywood royalty toasted the news as proof of their belief that European cricket is a largely untapped well of talent – and, more [...]
Joe Root piles pressure on cricket chiefs over Hundred format September 10, 2025 Joe Root has piled pressure on the England and Wales Cricket Board and the new Hundred owners to keep the competition’s format. While ECB bigwig Richard Thompson said the competition would remain 100 balls per innings, fewer than the 120 seen in Twenty20 competitions, the new franchise investors have been mulling a change to the [...]